Hallelujah! Wonderful God, glorious God, excellent Father, King of kings, Lord of lords, the great I Am, the All-knowing God, the All-sufficient God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the One who alone is worthy; the Beginning of all beginnings, the End of all ends, Oba awon oba, Oluwa awon oluwa, Olorun awon olorun, Kiniun eya Judah, Atobajaye, Oba lana, Oba loni, Oba meta lokan titi ayeraye, Kabi o o si; glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, always doing wonders, hallowed be Your name.
Thank You Father, our Maker, the Lord our God, our Father, our Sustainer, our Defender, our Promoter, the Lifter of our heads, thank You Lord, thank You Father, thank You for life, thank You for Your presence in our midst, thank You for the privilege that we have to call You Abba Father, thank You, thank You; thank You for what You have done for us in time past, thank You for Your divine visitation, thank You for Your mercy, thank You for Your grace, thank You for Your faithfulness; Father thank You for abundance and sufficient grace, Lord we appreciate You, Lord we honor You, Lord we adore You, excellent God, thank You because as we go into Your word You’re already here, speak Your word to us, give us clarity in Your word, give us the ability to do Your word; Father, the benefits in Your word release upon us in the name of Jesus, give us victory in the journey of life. Our Father we appreciate You, honor adoration we give unto You, in Jesus wonderful name we prayed. Praise the Lord! Praise the living Jesus!
I welcome you all – daddies, mommies, to the presence of the Most High God, my brothers and sisters. Once again I would like to acknowledge God for the gift of life, I’m standing here today because there’s life in me and you are here before me also because there is life, we thank God for that. I would also like to appreciate our father in the Lord, the APICR of Region 11, Pastor Tunde Netufo, for this privilege that I have, I pray that the Lord Almighty will continue to encourage him, support him, and the mercy of God will avail for him always in the mighty name of Jesus.
By the grace of God this morning, we will look at a brief message which is titled “Sustained by Mercy; Adorned by Grace”; our text is taken from Lamentations 3:22, it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not; they are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
Brethren, our father in the Lord has declared this month of March as our month of mercy, and in his ministration last week Sunday which was titled the Merciful and Gracious One, he gave us a simple illustration of mercy, so I will stand on that quickly as I refer to it just so to introduce the subject ‘mercy’ and then we’ll go into ‘grace, sustain, adorn’, but I’d like to tell us beforehand that there’s probably going to be nothing that you will hear this morning that you you’ve not heard before, so this is a message of reminder, admonition, encouragement and also something just to put us all back in line on our journey of life, praise the living Jesus!
So he said to us last week Sunday, Saul was running after David, caves, hills, anywhere, just looking for him to kill him but God kept David; but a day came in 1st Samuel 24, Saul was sleeping and the people who were guarding him also were somewhere of course not around Saul, also tired; the Bible says except the Lord watches over a city, the labor in vain that watch, so this applied to those who were watching over Saul, it was like laboring in vain because David now got as close to Saul that he could just kill him while he was sleeping. I mean somebody was going to kill you and you have the opportunity of killing him, you’ll say you’re the first mover, but then David said no, I will not kill him, that is mercy.
But then he did something, he then cut a part of his skirt so that at least I can show that I got so close to killing you, so mercy is where it is in your power to do something to another person, especially something that will hurt that person and you choose not to do it, that’s mercy, hallelujah! Praise the living Jesus!
And then what about grace? Grace has been defined as unmerited divine assistance that God gives to humans, me and you; it is the benevolence of God on the undeserving. When I saw this I said okay, does it mean there are some people who are deserving? Brethren, the truth is that none of us is deserving, that’s why it is called ‘unmerited favor’, none of us is deserving, so it is the benevolence of God unto all, that’s what grace is.
Some people say GRACE, if you take the first letter G, what you have left is RACE, so they said that G is a God factor in the race of life, praise the living Jesus! So for the context of our message this morning, I would like to add that grace is that ability that God gives to us to be able to live above sin, praise the living Jesus! And you will see that very shortly.
So what is to sustain? To support something or to keep it going; to help someone or something to stay alive. There’s somebody who has an accident, (I used a different example in the morning) and needs urgent help; they said they brought first aid so that they could take him to the hospital for proper care, that first aid is to sustain him or her until he get to the place of help, praise the living Jesus!
So what about adorn? To adorn means to make someone or something look more beautiful and attractive by decorating them with something. I gave an example in the morning that I probably would not want to give again, only to say that women will relate more with the word ‘adorn’; if you look at our mommies you can see they are beautifully arrayed with head gears, with glasses, with earrings, with everything and if you see most men you just see us in a simple form, praise the living Jesus!
So the message today, “Sustained by Mercy; Adorned by Grace” means it is the mercy of God that gives us life; but for His mercy (as you will soon see) we will not be here, and Lamentations 3:22 tells us but for His mercy we’ll not be here, and adorned by grace means that which we carry that people see and say there’s glory of God in you, it’s actually grace, hallelujah! That somebody is telling you you’re a successful man, you’re a successful woman, it’s actually grace; that somebody says I like the way you speak, I like the way you walk, I like your carriage, it is grace, praise the Lord!
So it is saying in our living, everything about us we owe it to God, hallelujah!
So to go through this message very quickly, I’ll take it in four parts: the first one will talk about the person of God, then we’ll talk about the nature of man, then we’ll move on to look at the interface of the play between mercy and grace versus the judgment that comes with what it takes to be a natural man, and then we’ll look at how do we maximize the benefit of the mercy and grace that God has given to us, praise God!
So the first one, the person of God, if we start to talk about God from now till eternity we will not finish, so let me just take the one that’s relevant to the teaching this morning; the first thing to note about the person of God is that God is pure, He is purer than light; one of the key attributes of God is purity, when the Bible introduced God to us in Genesis 1 and God looked at everything, He said this is dirty, I can’t see this, so He had to do something before it continues, He said let us put everything in order to make it look good, to make it look nice, to show that He cannot identify with dirt, with rowdiness, with incompleteness, Genesis 1: 1-3.
Then in James 1: 17 the Bible tells us that God is the Father of lights; now scientists have proven to us that light is pure and there’s something called dispersion of light and all that, then you see that indeed light is pure, but then Bible says God is the Father of light, if light is pure, the Father of light must be purer than light, praise the living Jesus! So God is pure, purer than light, that’s one nature of God.
James 5:12 then admonishes us that let your nay be nay, let your yea be yea; it’s saying when you say it is right, let it be found that way, when you say it is white, let it be found that way, when you say it is black, let nobody come and say indeed it is blue you called it black because that is who your Father is, He’s pure, He’s light, He’s straight, praise God!
That is one about the person of God, the second one I would like to pick is that because of His nature of purity, He cannot stand iniquity. Biblically, light represents good things while darkness represents evil, and as we know, when there is light darkness cannot stand, look at where we are now you can’t find darkness, darkness has disappeared, and in the same way where darkness is operating you won’t find light there. In the night when we’ve shut out all this artificial lights, when you come in here what do you see, darkness, light has nothing to do with darkness, however, wherever there is darkness light can come and say ‘darkness, go away’, and so I pray for someone here this morning, if there’s anything in your life that is darkness, the light of God will shine through it in the mighty name of Jesus.
Habakkuk 1: 13 therefore tells us that His eyes are purer that they cannot behold iniquity, the meaning of that is wherever God sees sin, iniquity, evil, darkness, He does not associate with it. In John 11:42, the Bible says while Jesus Christ was at the tomb of Lazarus, He said Father, I know that You have always answered Me, this time around also, it’s just because of these people I’m saying it but I know You also hear me, God has always heard Jesus Christ.
However, in Matthew 27: 45 & 46, while on the cross, He said Father, Father, why have You forsaken Me? So what is He saying, Father You have not answered My prayers, but what happened Jesus Christ was on the cross of Calvary, He was carrying the sins of the world so there was iniquity, Father looked away because His eyes will not behold iniquity; if that will happen to the person of Jesus Christ it will happen to any of us, if there is sin, if there is Iniquity in your life you cannot call on God and He will answer. I pray that whatsoever iniquity is or is represented by in your life, God will give the grace to take it away this day in the mighty name of Jesus.
Now let’s quickly move on to the nature of man; the first thing to note is that we were shaped, conceived in sin, and born sinners, Psalm 51: 5, behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me; another translation says but I was born a sinner, yes, from the moment my mother conceived me. You know the meaning of this, even a child that is born today comes into the world carrying the burden of sin, don’t forget what we talked about God, God is holy, He doesn’t want to see sin, He doesn’t want to see iniquity, but here is man from day one, from the first breath, it says sin, so it creates a gap between man and God right from the beginning.
Romans 3:23, the Bible confirms it further to say that for all have sinned and have come short of the glory of God; all have sinned, not an exception; then it goes further in Psalms 7:11, the Bible says God judgeth the righteous and God is angry with the wicked every day; God is angry with sinners, with the wicked everyday, every minute, every second, every micro second. Let’s go further, so a natural man who is living, who is a carrier of sin is at risk of incurring the wrath of God every day.
The next thing to note about the nature of man is, because man carries that burden of sin and the Bible tells us that the reward of sin is death, there’s death within. The law of harvest will always apply, which says what you sow you reap; if you sow mango you reap mango, you sow laziness you reap poverty, hallelujah!
Hosea 8:7 says if you sow wind you will reap whirlwind, so in the same breath, a man that is a carrier of sin, the reward which is death is waiting for that man. Romans 6:23, for the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. When people say ah, but I’m not totally clean, that means I’m indulging in sin but I’m still alive, brethren, the death that we are talking about is not just physical death, it’s first and primarily the spiritual death.
A natural man that is living in sin cannot connect with God, the Bible says God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth, so a natural man is lost forever until her repents, no connection with God. Romans 1:28, the Bible says and God has given them to a reprobate mind, what is saying is that such a man will continue to indulge in sin and will not even know that it is sin and will continue to be happy and celebrating, they think they are enjoying life but indeed they are dead.
A natural man when he prays to God, the Lord will not hear because the Bible says if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, hallelujah! So any man or woman who is living in sin, who is not doing the will of God will without a doubt receive that reward of sin.
Now this is where I want all of us to be attentive; now there is a God who is pure, there is a man who is carrying the burden of sin, man who wants to come to God but the nature of God says you can’t get close to Me and there is a Satan that is saying don’t go, don’t go and stain Him, but God wants to help man, God knows that the reward for sin is death but God doesn’t want man to die, so God says I will have mercy on them, and then the devil said God why do You want to have mercy? Were You not that same Person that You say the reward of sin is death? God says that’s true; did You not say You cannot break Your word? God says that’s true, and then God says but I still want man, what do I do? God devised a means, called His grace, sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for us, to bring His own righteousness and clothe us with His righteousness and as soon as God did that and the first man that came God said hey mercy, devil days no, no mercy, God says have you looked at him again? He’s now carrying the righteousness of Jesus Christ and then mercy prevails over judgment, hallelujah!
Now we go to the third part, the interface, the play between mercy and grace on the one hand and judgment (which is the reward for sin) on another hand. When you compare the nature of God and the natural man, you can see that it is white and black, they are distinct; the sinful nature of man will naturally make God just push him away like two same sides of a magnet, it will apply naturally the big stick, the reward for sin, judgment, death, and this is where mercy comes in, so instead of inputting our sins on us, He looks away and mercy says no and He buries our iniquities.
Romans 4:8, the Bible says blessed is the man whom the Lord will not impute sin; Psalm 103:8, the Bible says the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy; Psalm 130:3 however says His eyes will not behold in me quickly, but mercy now says God, temper justice with mercy, except for that, how do you explain Achan, Joshua 7, he stole from Jericho, he went to hide it and because of that he, his wife, children, family, everything was stoned to death and killed because the eyes of God cannot behold iniquity. How many of us have stolen in the past and are still stealing and we are still here? It is mercy, the mercy of God.
What about Uzzah? 2nd Samuel 6:5-7, the Ark of Covenant, the representation of the holiness of God, Uzzah, apparently would have not been in his cleanest of form held the ark of God because he felt he wanted to fall but God says you are not supposed to come near me, I am clean, pure and you are carrying iniquity and he was struck dead.
What about the sons of Aaron in Leviticus 10:1 & 2, Nadab and Abihu, the Bible says they burnt strange fire and the fire from the Lord came and consumed them. They knew they were living and sin and they were conducting deliverance, how many of us have done that? They say brother come, let us pray, instead of saying sorry, I’m not in a state to pray for anybody, you pray for me first before I pray, you say yes, we are the prayer warriors, strange fire.
Instead of receiving the reward for our sins, we received forgiveness, James 2:13, for he shall have judgment without mercy, that he hath showed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
Brethren, what keeps you and I alive today is the mercy of God. Then what about the grace, how does grace come into this? I told you earlier, the real definition of grace is the ability that God gives us to live above sins so that whenever God looks at us from His throne room, He will not see the filthy rag that we are carrying, He will see the righteousness of Jesus Christ that clothe us.
Romans 5:21, as sin reigns unto death, even so, grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life; instead of sin to lead to death, grace comes and says halt sin and give man eternal life. Romans 5:6-8, when we were without strength, when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, how did He die? He made His Son, Jesus Christ the propitiation for our sin, 1st John 2:2, what does that mean? That seems to be a big word, propitiation means because there must be something, a token to take away sins and He gave Jesus Christ as a gift to pay for that sin, that’s the propitiation, a gift to temper something, to pay for something and Jesus Christ did that for us, He paid the price for our sins, He died our death and we are living His life in return, praise the living Jesus!
We were born putting all these together, we were born into sin, Psalm 51:5, therefore we carry the guilt, the baton of sin, unrighteousness all about, this made us the enemies of God and then we became susceptible to judgment because of that, and there could be no justification because it’s already agreed, the soul that sinneth, our souls were in peril, then grace came and changed the whole story and offered salvation.
Ephesians 2:8, for by grace are ye saved through faith; Titus 2:11 goes further to say for the grace of God that bringeth salvation had appeared unto all men, because of that we now have victory over sin. James 4:6, He gives grace so that we can resist the devil and overcome; James 6:4-7, because of that we have eternal encouragement, eternal hope, grace does not just cover our sins, grace covers us with God’s glory and that’s where the word ‘adornment’ comes, grace adorns us.
Let’s see some of the things that grace does for us;
Grace justifies us before the holy God; when Satan is saying he’s not holy, grace says look at him again, Jesus Christ has covered him, that’s grace.
Grace paves the way for us into the throne room of God; before we were poles apart, white and black, but then in Hebrews 4, grace says ‘come boldly’, hallelujah!
Grace forges a new relationship for us, relationship of intimacy; Exodus 33, Moses said if I have found grace in Your eyes, God said yes you have found grace, I will go with you; this binds man and God together in an intimate relationship.
What else did grace do for us? Grace grants us immeasurable spiritual riches, Ephesians 2:7.
Grace adorns us, covers us with glory, no longer will God see our filthiness, no longer will He see our unrighteousness and then because of that mercy can stand, but for grace there will be no mercy.
This is the fourth and final part of the message, how can we make the maximum benefit? The maximum benefit of the mercy and the grace of God that’s available, how can we use it? The first one, be merciful unto others, I want us to look at that James 2:13 again, there’s a a phrase there, for he shall have judgment without mercy (look at the next one) that had showed no mercy; the one who had showed no mercy would also have judgment without mercy, and then Matthew 5: 7, Bible says blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
Brethren, if there’s anyone that you have been holding in unforgiveness, please forgive them; somebody has done something wrong, they are pleading and saying please overlook it, please by the mercy of God overlook it, forgive them, be merciful unto others.
Number two, don’t let sin reign in your mortal body. You remember where we are coming from, man was born into sin, Jesus Christ covered us, that’s the end of sin, if you go back into sin you are unwinding the story, don’t let sin reign in your mortal bodies. Romans 6:12, let not sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the loss thereof; verse 13 says don’t let your members yield, don’t use your members as instruments of unrighteousness. You are beautiful, yes, but don’t use it as an instrument of unrighteousness; oh you have good brain, yes, don’t use it for yahoo yahoo; God has given you [skipped[
No, she went elsewhere and said our pastor told us that once you are born again you can do anything, you can’t sin again, I said it’s a lie, they will kill you, come back here; that’s the message of Nicolatians, they tell you that once you are saved you are saved, once you are saved and you go back into sin you are going back into pedition, don’t abuse the grace of God. Romans 6: 1& 2, what shall we then say, shall we continue in sin and expect that grace will abound? God forbid, and also we should not go into presumptuous sin, you don’t go and sin deliberately, you say ah, there’s second service let me quickly commit sin in the morning I’ll go and ask God for forgiveness, you are deceiving yourself, don’t abuse the grace of God.
Number three, you are a servant of righteousness, therefore you must submit yourself to God always. The Bible says to whom you are the servant, that person you must submit to; if grace of God has found you and set you free, then you must submit to Him and His nature is righteousness, Hebrews 1:9, thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquities, (it says) man I created in my image and likeness, I don’t want him to perish, I actually want to forgive him; the devil says God, You know You cannot do that because You already put down the law, God says how do I do it, I must have mercy on man, then He devised a means and said I will bring grace unto man and that grace is Jesus Christ, and by reason of that grace, mercy was activated, and when mercy was activated the devil keeps quiet, the devil will not rejoice over your lives in the mighty name of Jesus.
Mercy makes God to look away from our sins but don’t abuse the grace of God; if you don’t accept the Giver of the grace, you cannot have the grace; if I’m holding something and I know the person – let’s use political parties, PAC and DPP, if I’m a member of PAC and DPP has a project, will DPP give PAC members? Say come and be my member, I give it only to my members; Jesus has grace, I say I want grace, He says you need to be mine, and if you reject it, if you don’t have grace mercy will not be activated on your behalf, and if mercy is not activated on your behalf, surely the reward of sin is coming, judgment, death, and if death comes, o di’gbo, end of story.
John 1:14, the Bible says Jesus Christ is the embodiment of grace and truth, so this is the One that is the Giver of grace that you must accept,
[Altar call]
When people are saying God give me grace, all those things that we call grace they are subordinate to this grace, if you do not have this grace which is the foundational grace, no other grace can be added unto you, praise the living Jesus!
Today is my birthday, I was asking God what is the message and He said reveal me to the people, that’s the reason behind this message.
[Altar call]
Let us rise up, let us begin to give thanks to God, Father we thank You, thank You Lord for Your faithfulness, thank You for Your mercy, thank You for Your grace upon my life, thank You, thank You Lord, glory be to Your name forever more. Father I thank You, thank You Lord; Father thank You for Your word of grace, thank You for Your mercy, thank You for everything, glory be to Your name forever more, in Jesus marvelous name we have given thanks.
We are going to pray and say Father, let Your mercy speak for me, let Your mercy triumph over judgment in the mighty name of Jesus. In my life let Your mercy speak for me, let Your mercy triumph over judgment, in the mighty name of Jesus, thank You heavenly Father, in Jesus wonderful name we prayed.
For as many of us who are saved the grace of God is upon you, we are going to pray and say Father, please don’t let me ever abuse Your grace, don’t let me ever abuse Your grace upon my life in the mighty name of Jesus, in Jesus wonderful name we prayed.
And finally, the Bible tells us that the devil is a restless spirit, even though he knows that the battle is lost, he will still come back and try peradventures there’s something in it for him, but for you and I there’s nothing in it for him in the mighty name of Jesus. So the devil is constantly looking for a way, he can’t take away the grace but he can make somebody to surrender the grace, we are going to cry to God and say Father, please hold me to enjoy Your grace until the end; in the mighty name of Jesus, no one, no force, no situation will take Your grace away from me, hold me oh Lord.
